The letter, pompous, devoid of tact, went on to a definite prohibition. Cadell closed the door of his house in the face of the undesirable suitor. A note of spite rang out sharp in the older man's reference to his daughter's note. "The enclosure will make the matter clear."
It did. McTaggart leaned down and pushed both letters into the stove, watching the flames rise high, turning love into ashes.
Long he sat there, his chin on his hands, his blue eyes staring into space. The clock ticked on noisily, marking the death of more than Time. Broken ideals, vanished dreams ... enthusiasm, loyalty; wasted at an unworthy shrine—his mind veered round at last to Fantine.
Women were all alike, it seemed. Creatures of impulse, without honour...
There came a knock at his bedroom door—a message from the Marchesa.
He rose to his feet with a curious smile. The French maid was waiting outside.
McTaggart, pointing to Bethune's letter, explained that business of importance required an immediate answer. He would be with her mistress shortly—the time to write a hurried line...
He paused as the girl raised her eyes and, in the darkness of the passage, slipping an arm round her waist, he stole a kiss from her fresh mouth, amused at the maid's swift surrender.
Then he passed her and went downstairs. "That's the only way to treat them!" he said to himself, with no sense of pleasure, but a perverse, cold disgust.
In the hall he sat down, drew out a sheet of black-edged paper with a coronet engraved upon it and wrote forthwith to Cadell.